"It's not how you look
at things that changes things; it's how you change
things that changes things." Tumbleweed

As I look over my writings, both on the Bible
studies and commentaries on life in general; it appears to me that I
have a very negative attitude and outlook. I like
to think of my attitude as "realistic" rather than "negative." But is
it?

Is
my attitude realistic? Is it negative? And if it is either of these, should
it be what it is, or should my attitude be positive in spite
of reality?

It is common today to hear it said that we must have a positive
attitude toward all things. To have other than a positive outlook
causes people to shy away from you and pay you no mind. After all, who
wants to hear someone complain, about anything, be it real or imagined?

I know people who are
very happy ignoring the state of affairs of the world and the direction
it is taking. That does not mean that they are unaware
of such events; after all, they watch TV, the news, and they read the
newspaper, so they have to know even more about
current events than I do, because I ignore completely all news reports
and current events posted in the media.

I ignore the news, yet
what little filters into my awareness disturbs me. Meanwhile, those who
are bombarded with the news on a daily bases, seem to be unaffected by
what they hear. Does this seem odd to you?

It seems odd to me.

A mother or a nurse, surrounded by screaming, bawling babies can ignore
the cries as she goes about her business attending to that which most
needs attending to. But a mother with just one child crying will likely
pull her hair out from frustration and an intense desire to appease the
squalling one.

One fingerprint on the
fender of that shiny new car and it is immediately eliminated. Three
years later "wash me" written in dust on the rear window is totally
ignored.

Like the frog in the boiling pot, I believe that society has become
immune to the likelihood and the evidences of impending world
destruction. And why not? Since I was a youngster under the Kennedy
Administration I have heard about the strong likelihood of having an
Atom Bomb dropped on my head. And my first few years of life was during
a time when the entire world was at war with one another, trying to be
the one to press the final button of destruction.

Yet we are still here. The only difference between then and now, is the
lack of concern for the very same potentialities.

And perhaps this is a good thing. It seems to me that ignorance is
bliss. I am glad that people are ignorant of the future, and the
realities of today. They are happy. And if they comprehended that
following the dictates of the day means destruction to the soul and the
Spirit, it would change nothing, except to perhaps cause them to be a
little more miserable.

And I wouldn't want
that.

I say, if you are content with life, then by all means keep a positive
attitude, and above all, ignore my website at all cost.

A positive attitude. That is the cry of the day. Think
yourself to happiness. Think yourself thin. Watch
for the good and ignore the bad. I'm ok; You're ok.

Good advise. (?)

Let's see how that
modern attitude would have looked in days gone by.

"Don't worry, Eve; after all, it's just a piece of fruit, and you know
God wants us to have what's good for us. Besides, hee hee,
we're all He's got, He's not going to do anything to us."

"Flood? What flood? Stop wasting your time on
that boat, Noah, and enjoy life. Life's short you know. Grab all the
gusto you can from it while you've got it."

"Don't worry, Moses; after all, it's just a golden statue, and you know
God wants us to have what's fun for us. Besides, hee hee,
we're all He's got, He's not going to do anything to us."

"In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an
invincible summer." ~Albert Camus

"Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at
least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we
didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us
all be thankful." ~Buddha

"There are no menial jobs, only menial attitudes."~William J.
Bennett,

"I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a
flower would grow." ~Abraham Lincoln

"Being in a good frame of mind helps keep one in the picture of
health." ~Author Unknown

"Got no checkbooks, got no banks, Still I'd like to express my thanks -
I got the sun in the morning and the moon at night." ~Irving
Berlin

"To everyone is given the key to heaven; the same key opens the gates
of hell." ~Ancient Proverb

"Make your optimism come true." ~Author Unknown

"True contentment depends not upon what we have; a tub was large enough
for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander." ~Charles
Caleb Colton

"To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it." ~Confucius

"I don't think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains."
~Anne Frank

"The best things in life are unexpected - because there were no
expectations." ~Eli Khamarov

"Oft expectation fails, and most oft there Where most it promises." ~William
Shakespeare

"Affectation is a greater enemy to the face than smallpox." ~English
Proverb

"Say you are well, or all is well with you, And God shall hear your
words and make them true."~Ella WheelerWilcox

"A person will sometimes devote all his life to the development of one
part of his body - the wishbone." ~Robert Frost

"If we shall take the good we find, asking no questions, we shall have
heaping measures." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can
alter his life by altering his attitudes." ~William James

"Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady
purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye." ~Mary
Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein,
1818

"When you feel dog tired at night, it may be because you've growled all
day long." ~Author Unknown

"What is possible? What you will." ~Augustus and Julius Hare

"Good fortune shies away from gloom. Keep your spirits up. Good things
will come to you and you will come to good things." ~Glorie
Abelhas

"Could we change our
attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself
would come to be different." ~Katherine Mansfield

"Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize
they were the big things." ~Robert Brault

"Let me enjoy the earth no less Because the all-enacting Might Which
fashioned forth its loveliness Had other aims than my delight." ~Thomas
Hardy

"Whenever you fall, pick something up." ~Oswald Avery

"Success is due less to ability than to zeal." ~Charles Buxton

"My father's nature turned out no waste product; he had none of that
useless stuff in him that lies in heaps near factories. He took his own
happiness with him." ~Margot Asquith

"Anywhere is paradise; it's up to you." ~Author Unknown

"We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them." ~Elbert
Hubbard

"If my resolution to be a great man was half so strong as it is to
despise the shame of being a little one..." ~William Cowper

"I think, what has this day brought me, and what have I given it?" ~Henry
Moore

"We plant seeds that will flower as results in our lives, so best to
remove the weeds of anger, avarice, envy and doubt..." ~Dorothy
Day

"I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else." ~Winston
Churchill

"What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight - it's
the size of the fight in the dog." ~Dwight Eisenhower

"Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first
or last time." ~Betty Smith

"No life is so hard that you can't make it easier by the way you take
it." ~Ellen Glasgow

"I have learned to use the word impossible with the greatest caution." ~Wernher
von Braun

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two
opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the
ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that
things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise." ~F.
Scott Fitzgerald

"There's a saying among prospectors: 'Go out looking for one thing, and
that's all you'll ever find.'" ~Robert Flaherty

"The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it." ~C.C.
Scott

"I am a little deaf, a little blind, a little impotent, and on top of
this are two or three abominable infirmities, but nothing destroys my
hope." ~Voltaire

"The excursion is the same when you go looking for your sorrow as when
you go looking for your joy." ~Eudora Welty

"Being a sex symbol has to do with an attitude, not looks. Most men
think it's looks, most women know otherwise." ~Kathleen Turner

"Too many people miss the silver lining because they're expecting
gold." ~Maurice Setter

"We cannot direct the wind but we can adjust the sails." ~Author
Unknown

"The block of granite which was an obstacle in the pathway of the weak,
became a stepping-stone in the pathway of the strong." ~Thomas
Carlyle

"Misery is a communicable disease." ~Martha Graham

"The world is full of cactus, but we don't have to sit on it." ~Will
Foley

"If you have the will to win, you have achieved half your success; if
you don't, you have achieved half your failure." ~David
Ambrose

"If the skies fall, one may hope to catch larks." ~Francis
Rabelais

"For my part I believe in the forgiveness of sin and the redemption of
ignorance." ~Adlai Stevenson

"A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but
rather a person with a certain set of attitudes." ~Hugh Downs

"Very often a change of self is needed more than a change of scene." ~Arthur
Christopher Benson

"Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns; I am
thankful that thorns have roses." ~Alphonse Karr

"If you call a thing bad you do little, if you call a thing good you do
much." ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"The Kingdom of Heaven is not a place, but a state of mind." ~John
Burroughs

"The real 'it is well' is something I say from the ground, having
fallen." ~Antonio Porchia

"Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves." ~Italian
Proverb

"Reach for the stars, even if you have to stand on a cactus." ~Susan
Longacre

"I not only bow to the inevitable; I am fortified by it." ~Thornton
Wilder

"I never really look for anything. What God throws my way comes. I wake
up in the morning and whichever way God turns my feet, I go." ~Pearl
Bailey

"Men who never get carried away should be." ~Malcolm Forbes

"Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or
actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities - always see
them, for they're always there." ~Norman Vincent Peale

"Surrounded by people who love life, you love it too; surrounded by
people who don't, you don't." ~Mignon McLaughlin

"Physical strength is measured by what we can carry; spiritual by what
we can bear." ~Author Unknown

"There are souls in this world which have the gift of finding joy
everywhere and of leaving it behind them when they go." ~Frederick
Faber

"We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same
horizon." ~Konrad Adenauer

"We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion, just as
effectively as by bombs." ~Kenneth Clark

"The impossible can always be broken down into possibilities." ~Author
Unknown

"He started to sing as he tackled the thing That couldn't be done, and
he did it." ~Edgar A. Guest

"Why not learn to enjoy the little things - there are so many of them."
~Author Unknown

"Say "Yes" to the seedlings and a giant forest cleaves the sky. Say
"Yes" to the universe and the planets become your neighbors. Say "Yes"
to dreams of love and freedom. It is the password to utopia." ~Brooks
Atkinson

"Positive anything is better than negative thinking." ~Elbert
Hubbard

"I am sure that nothing has such a decisive influence upon a man's
course as his personal appearance, and not so much his appearance as
his belief in its attractiveness or unattractiveness." ~Leo
Tolstoy